Security heightened in Bengaluru for New Year festivities

With the shadow of bomb blast hovering over the city and with 24 hours to welcome the New Year, the city police are taking all measures to maintain law and order in the city. The people, who want to celebrate the New Year’s Eve on M.G. Road, Brigade Road and surrounding areas, will have to go through door frame metal detectors (DFMD) and hand held metal detectors to proceed towards eateries, pubs or public space. Vehicles at parking lots will be searched with belly mirrors, a press release from Police Commissioner M.N. Reddi stated.

Quadcopters to be used for aerial surveillance
The city police will have drones fitted with night-vision cameras to monitor any suspicious activities in the Central Business District. These drones will be monitored from a dedicated control room. “For the first time, we are using the drones to monitor the New Year’s Eve celebrations on M.G. Road and Brigade Road. These are remote controlled cameras which will go up to 50 metre height,” said Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Patil.

More than 10 watchtowers, extra CCTV cameras
At around ten spots in and around M.G. Road and four spots on Commercial Street and Indiranagar, watchtowers have been erected and armed policeman with night-vision binoculars will monitor general public for any suspicious movements. MG Road and surroundings will have extra 75 CCTV cameras (25 from the city police and 50 from private establishments). These cameras are apart from the existing ones that will be used for monitoring the movement of the crowd. Eight temporary CCTVs will record festivities in Indiranagar and on Commercial Street. Twelve units of mounted police will be deployed on MG Road and Brigade Road.